Zeitschrift fur Gerontologie最新文献

Based on the widely spread desire to return to their homeland among elderly Turkish migrant workers, the hypothesis was tested that those who plan to return to Turkey show more life satisfaction than those who plan to stay in Germany. Results of an empirical investigation (questionnaire; (N = 62) did not support this assumption. Interviewees who plan to stay in Germany are significantly more socially integrated, more satisfied with their situation in old age and look back in a significantly more positive way on their lives than those who plan to return. These results are discussed as an indication of the need to feel socially integrated after spending most of one's lifetime in Germany. The wish to return to the homeland does not express a real intention, but rather serves to maintain ethnical and cultural identity.

The aim of this pilot study is to investigate the importance of chronological age, sex, functional and extra-functional qualifications and job experience in the advertisements for positions in daily journals. For that purpose a content analysis was carried out with 450 advertisements in national and 150 advertisements in regional papers. The general result is, that persons in the second half of their lives are rarely searched and that there are distinct differences in the job requirements in the advertisements of national and regional journals.

255 staff persons in the inpatient care of the aged, mainly nursing home staff, nurses and assisting personnel, were included in a multicenter questionnaire study. As expected, the great majority define their job as nursing, but approx. 20% identify themselves also with the work of a chaplain or a psychologist. Time pressure at work (59%) was reported as the main strain, followed by organizational deficits (22%) and compassion with the suffering of some inhabitants (20%). Among the positive and motivating aspects of the job teamwork and contact with the aged was said to be most important (59% and 57%, respectively), followed by autonomy and responsibility in the job. Approximately half of the staff expressed high job satisfaction, especially with respect to teamwork and the relationship with the aged. Actually staff training and supervision is reported to be extremely deficient, more than half confirmed that psychosocial staff training and supervision is important and necessary and should mainly deal with problems of team interaction and ways of emotional release. Main issues desired were aspects of interaction with depressive or aggressive persons as well as for caring for the terminal patient. The results clearly stress the important role of psychosocial staff training and supervision in this field, in order to improve competence as well as to achieve an emotional release and to prevent "burnout".

The model of selective optimization with compensation (Baltes & Baltes 1989; 1990) offers a theoretical concept of successful aging, that aims at the adaptivity of older persons in the aging process. The present study proposes an empirical operationalization of the model within the domain of social contact behavior, and relates this to self-referent knowledge on daily activities. Older persons with multiple chronic diseases and those in generally good health are compared according to their self-referent knowledge on daily activities and social contact behavior. All participants in the study were socially integrated and well functioning. A total of 35 subjects (mean age = 74.4 years) kept a prestructured dairy about their social contacts for a period of six days. Knowledge on daily activities was assessed in a semi-structured interview. The interviews and diaries were content analyzed (inter-rater reliability estimated via Cohen's Kappa for the interview: M = 0.84; for the diaries: M = 0.93). Results show that the highly social integrated subjects with multiple chronic disease performed significantly better in selective and compensatory strategies than the subjects in good health. Selection was indicated by (a) less family contact and a smaller number of group encounters, (b) more emotional support exchange, and (c) more knowledge on maintenance of daily activities. Compensation was indicated by (d) more frequent use of the telephone and (e) greater knowledge of prosthetic resources. It is concluded that social integration and participation can be optimized through selective and compensatory strategies in the face of chronic diseases in old age.

The process of women's adjustment to retirement has been widely neglected by social scientists. Compared to men, women partly experience greater difficulty in adjusting to the retirement process, as the few studies on this subject have demonstrated. Results of a qualitative study are reported. The processes of early versus normal transition to retirement have been studied in former female employees of the German Federal Postal Administration. Despite similar life-styles and work biographies, different patterns of adjustment emerge due to health status and social experiences. These results stress the importance of a biographically based approach to the process of adjustment.

Caring for chronically ill older persons in need of nursing care in the family depends very much on the internal structure of the family, the capabilities of those providing the care and the family's decision to opt for nursing care facilities. In this context the family and not (just) the patient becomes the crucial point of reference for dealing with illness and nursing care requirements on a day-to-day basis. The family thus also becomes the object of analysis from the point of view of research strategy. An approach to caring for chronically ill older persons oriented towards the biographical context/living environment utilizing (retrospective or prospective) "longitudinal" analyses is preferred to the traditional rather "linear" cross-section surveys of in situ stress aspects. A research paradigm can be developed related to day-to-day concerns that systematically analyzes as a process the individual stress situations of persons nursing a relative on a day-to-day basis. A future research paradigm would have to focus on relatives, not those just reacting to the current situation, but those active over a period of time--pursuing "careers" as relatives, as active subjects involved in nursing chronically ill older persons.

Volunteering is not an unproblematic perspective for elderly women. Practical experience as well as scientific research point to the ambiguity of this type of work. On one hand, the gender-typed division of labour is continued; access to social or political voluntary work reflects the unequality of chances. On the other hand, volunteering can open up approaches and perspectives to improve one's individual life situation, particularly through social integration, giving a meaning to life, and thus gaining better health and psychosocial status. Especially in biographical phases, which are marked by losses of life-guiding functions and contacts, volunteering may become important. But there are a lot of women, who does not have the material and social conditions to manage this work. Should volunteering be shaped to fit many elderly women, it needs to be listed on the agenda on ageing topic of the ageing and women's policy.

The results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 36 epidemiological studies on competence in activities of daily living and basic care needs in old age is presented. On the level of basic activities (ADL), the mean portions of elderly people in private households receiving help varied between 1.4% (eating) and 7.7% (bathing). With respect to the "instrumental" activities (IADL) cooking and shopping, the mean percentages were 14.1% and 17.8%, respectively. The mean rate of care needs in the elderly at home amounted to 4.7%. These global scores are further differentiated with respect to person variables (age, sex) and study characteristics (severity of care needs, inclusion of institutionalized elderly).

The impact of social position on mortality has been explained by a variety of underlying causes, among which different living conditions and life-styles of social strata, different working conditions, and a selection process are the most important. This study relies on an indirect method of evaluating cohort mortality and life expectancy. The results confirm considerable impact of social status on life expectancy. Furthermore, living conditions as well as working conditions seem of relevance, whereas a simple selection process is falsified.